Dammed to Extinction

Since 1976, Ken Balcomb has been studying southern resident killer whales in the Salish Sea. This one-of-a-kind, fish-eating population of orcas is slowly starving to death for lack of their preferred food source, chinook salmon. To bring salmon back to the southern residents, Balcomb has been working overtime on a campaign to take out four dams on the lower Snake River, which block access to rivers that once produced millions of chinook each year. “It’s the most important project I’ve taken on in my career,” he says.